The Loma Linda Market and Campus Store, 11161 Anderson St., will host an open house from 10 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. on Thursday (December 17).

The event is open to the local community and Loma Linda students, faculty, and staff.

The open house will showcase the market’s newly renovated appearance as well as the many new
products, brands, and services now available. Showcased products at the Campus Store include computer hardware,
software, and accessories, the complete line of Apple computers, and new
Loma Linda University apparel.

The market will be showcasing healthful cookware by the Culinary Institute of America, and premier brands such as Food Should Taste Good, Knudson, and Vibrant Life. The market will also have chefs and nutrition experts available to kick off its recipe and ingredient advice service. The open house will feature discounts, food samples, demonstrations, recipe activities for children, hourly prize drawings and more.

I had been wanting to try Happy Family Vegetarian Cuisine (2150 S. Waterman Ave.) in San Bernardino for a while now. Not that I’m a vegetarian, mind you. Not that I’m a total carnivore, either. I’m somewhere in-between.

But I’m seriously fascinated by faux-meat vegetarian dishes, like those found at Veggie Era in Upland, and also at Happy Family.

I finally went there last week and was impressed. It’s in the same small strip mall as Jackpot Thai & Chinese Food, and I was expecting a similar experience.

They’re as different as night and day.

Jackpot caters mostly to take-out orders and has a few tables in its sparse dining area. Happy Family is a beautifully decorated sit-down restaurant. I was a bit surprised to learn that when I walked in.

Most of these eateries offer meat substitutes that, if you didn’t know what you were eating, you would swear you were eating meat. Veggie Era, for instance, has a delicious lemongrass chicken…that’s chicken-free, of course.

This is a grilled vegetable burrito smackdown. Now this is not a
McDonalds (Chipotle) vs Jack in the Box (Qdoba) thing. If the burrito
scale goes from 1 to 10… The 10 goes to… drum roll… Chipotle! I would
hold Qdoba’s burrito at an 8.5. The devil is in the details. The said
details are the type of vegetables that are grilled, the hot sauce and
rice. Chipotle’s grilled veggies are mostly onions and peppers and
Qdoba’s are mostly squashes. The hot sauces are a side extra but make a
big difference to me. Chipotle uses the Tabasco Brand Chipotle Pepper
Sauce and Qdoba sports the wood topped Cholula brand Hot Sauce.

Lastly, the rice seemed just a bit fluffier at Chipotle. Both burritos
are the best the I.E. has to offer so enjoy either if one is close to
your lunch plans.

I often find that being a vegetarian is becoming less and less difficult each year due to the choices offered in area eateries. Although there are not a large variety of exclusive veggie stops in the in the 909, there is often that one thing I can have wherever I may stop. A list of menu items that are vegetarian from various restaurants that aren’t. Hopefully there is usually at least one thing we can eat when going out to lunch with friends.